Prime Minister meet with the President of the Republic of Belarus

PM Sherif Ismail met with Mr. Alexander Lukashenko, the President of the Republic of Belarus and the delegation accompanying him, within the framework to discuss ways to strengthen bilateral relations between the two countries in various fields that came in the presence of the ministers of agriculture, tourism and irrigation.

Ambassador Ashraf Sultan the official spokesman for the presidency of the Council of Ministers stated that the Prime Minister started the meeting by welcoming President Lukashenko and expressed his appreciation to the distinguished relations linking the two countries politically and economically and hoped that this important visit will open new impetus to the relations of cooperation between them in several areas, especially that there are promising opportunities for the development of this cooperation for the mutual benefit. They reviewed the most important features of the economic reform program, referring to the agreement signed by Egypt with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in November last year and the government in the framework of the continued development of the investment climate, including investment bill, which is expected to be issued soon, explaining that Egypt seeks to achieve economic growth rates of up to 6 to 7% and improving the economic performance indicators.

The PM assured the delegation that there are good opportunities for cooperation with the Belarusian side in a number of areas including furniture industry, projects of sewage treatment using low-cost technology, strengthening of capacity-building in the areas of water and irrigation systems developed, water and groundwater, provision of drinking water to contribute to the development of the agricultural crops, food industries and mobilization, and the possibility of joint manufacturing production of agricultural tractors and trucks and vehicles and trams.

The Prime Minister in this context, confirmed that there is a potential for large industrial joint cooperation, hinting that Egypt does not have any problems in the provision of energy, it also has a good employment in the areas of various technological and that these projects will benefit the two countries, whether with regard to the needs of the Egyptian market or export regional markets, taking into account the possibility of benefiting from the free trade agreements signed by Egypt with a number of regional blocs, including the COMESA, which will allow the Belarus force of the African market through Egypt and enlarges the use of productive projects. Engineer Sharif Ismail stressed on the attention of the Government of Egypt to join the free trade agreement with the European Union , Belarus, Kazakhstan and Armenia which will allow Egypt to export its products to those markets.

PM Sherif Ismail also called on the Belarusian side to strengthen its investments in all fields to contribute to the projects of existing national projects, such as Suez Canal, and the golden triangle, fish farms, as well as to contribute to huge agricultural projects adopted by the Egyptian government and the Plan of Egypt to transplant about 4 million feddans in the next ten years.

With regard to tourism, the PM looked forward to cooperation with Belarus in this area and the preparation of the Belarusian tourism to Egypt, indicating that Egypt enjoys the potential of the huge tourist purposes of tourist and cultural variety.

At the end of the meeting, the prime minister pointed out that there will be coordination between the two sides during the coming short period of time to identify the industrial technological potential through meetings with officials to develop specific proposals for cooperation in key areas that have been mentioned during the meeting, confirming the necessity of communication between officials and the business community in the two countries continuously.

On his part, President Lukashenko expressed his country's aspiration to increase cooperation with Egypt in various fields, pointing out that Egypt is one of the key partners economists on Arab and African level, explaining that his country has a number of industries and expertise developed that Egypt could benefit from his country looked forward to establish joint projects, and that it is important to work quickly with the Egyptian side to develop ideas into actual effect, expressing his hope to further entry into force of the Belarusian companies on the Egyptian market including the export to other markets.

The Belarussian president added that it is also important to increase cooperation and achieve the success of the experience of the existing cooperation between Minsk and South Sinai governorate in a variety of areas to revitalize tourism and cultural exchanges and other.